Lowell apparently paid no attention to the rumors that were flying about. A mass of reservation detail had accumulated, and he worked hard to get it out of the way before the trial. He had made changes in the boarding-school system, and had established an experimental farm at the agency. He had supervised the purchase of livestock for the improvement of the tribal flocks and herds. In addition there had been the personal demands that shower incessantly upon every Indian agent who is interested in his work.
Reports from the reservation agriculturists, whose work was to help the Indians along farming lines, were not encouraging. Drought was continuing without abatement.
"The last rain fell the day before the murder on the Dollar Sign road," said Rogers. "Remember how we splashed through mud the day we ran out there and found that man staked down on the prairie?"
"And now the Indians are saying that the continued drought is due to Fire Bear's medicine," observed Lowell. "Even some of the more conservative Indians believe there is no use trying to raise crops until the charge against Fire Bear is dismissed and the evil spell is lifted."
In spite of the details of reservation management that crowded upon him, Lowell found time for occasional visits to the Greek Letter Ranch to see Helen Ervin. He told her the details of the Talpers shooting, so far as he knew them.
"There isn't much that I can tell about the cause of the shooting," said Lowell, in answer to one of her questions. "I could have had all the details, but I cautioned Jim McFann to say nothing in advance of his trial. But from what I have gathered here and there, Jim and Talpers fell out over money matters. A thousand-dollar bill was found on the floor under Talpers's body. It had evidently been taken from the safe, and might have been what they fought over."
Helen nodded in comprehension of the whole affair, though she did not tell Lowell that he had made it clear to her. She guessed that in some way Jim McFann had come into possession of the facts of his partner's perfidy. She wondered how the half-breed had found out that Talpers had taken money from the murdered man and had not divided. She had held that knowledge over Talpers's head as a club. She could see that he feared McFann, and she wondered if, in his last moments, Talpers had wrongfully blamed her for giving the half-breed the information which turned him into a slayer.
"Anyway, it doesn't make much difference what the fight was over," declared Lowell. "Talpers had been playing a double game for a long time. He tried just once too often to cheat his partner—something dangerous when that partner is a fiery-tempered half-breed."
"Is this shooting of Talpers going to have any effect on McFann's trial for the other murder?" asked Helen.
"It may inflame popular sentiment against both men still further—something that never seems to be difficult where Indians are concerned."